


Ashes to Ashes

by ScarlettsLetters



Series: A Tale of Two Soldiers [3]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Feels, Ashes Scene in Avengers: Infinity War Part 1, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Awesome Natasha Romanov, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers Feels, Captain America Steve Rogers/Modern Bucky Barnes, F/M, Genius Shuri (Marvel), Hurt Steve Rogers, M/M, Memories, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Past Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Romance, Shrunkyclunks, Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Steve Suffers, Thought Projection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-27
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2019-04-28 16:52:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14453640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScarlettsLetters/pseuds/ScarlettsLetters
Summary: Infinity War spoilers!In the aftermath of their reunion in Wakanda, Steve Rogers isn't sure he can go on. Natasha has always stood by his side in their darkest moments. She offers whatever grace she can to restore his ability to function, fight, and undo so many terrible wrongs.





	Ashes to Ashes

**Author's Note:**

> If you have not seen Infinity War, this story absolutely contains spoilers based on the final scenes. You have been warned. I'm aiming for an emotional set up here. Any comments or feedback warmly welcomed. <3
> 
> Theme:

“Steve?”

The slanting golden light pours through wooden slats over his face. Steve stirs under the sheets, throwing his arm over his face to block out the glare. Clearing his throat, he takes a moment to find his voice.

“Yeah?”

“Something's wrong…”

He sits bolt upright and throws the sheets back. A brilliantly patterned green and gold coverlet slides down into his lap, revealing a patina of faded bruises and thin cuts already turning pink with healed skin. His pulse hammers in his ears and for a moment, vertigo threatens to topple him sideways.

Eyes squeezed shut, the glare nonetheless drives thin daggers into his pounding skull. The thundering beat of his heart quickens all the worse.

He can't breathe. No matter how deep he pulls air into his lungs, not enough seems to fill up his chest.

“Bucky!”

His shout rattles the windows. Soft hangings and woven grass panels on the wall muffle the sound only somewhat, softening the raw terror. He forces himself to pry open his eyes and squint through the sunny glare of an equatorial sun.

No one is in his chamber, in this quietly appointed hut set apart from the devastated capital city of Wakanda.

A guard must be stationed outside. He hears the shuffle of movement and the bleat of goats. Mundane noises do not belong in this personal hell he finds himself in. His hands fly to his temples and press in, as if he might squeeze the unwanted visions and recollections out of his very skull.

He can't. He wishes it were otherwise, but he can't.

“Captain Rogers, are you well?”

The guard they gave him speaks passable English, beautifully accented by the rolling breadth of vowels he associates with his time in England all those years ago.

Steve buries his face in his hands. The bed barely creaks. Outside, the rich red earth bears the rusty wounds scratched out by countless alien horrors that crawled like spiders through the fields in front of the city.

His silence must alert someone higher up. He has no words, only the choking grief that tears do not express.

“...to the white wolf's quarters,” he hears at a distance.

Steve yearns to rage and to weep. To scream. His muscles lock and tremble with tension turned too high. Everything of a dream crashes down onto his shoulders, raw and broad.

He cannot face the world like this. A stifled sob shakes his shoulders.

It was never supposed to be this way. He promised.

* * *

 

_ 1943\. Pouru-aux-Bois. France. _

Bucky wiped his dirty sleeve across his sweaty brow. He leaned heavily into a pitted concrete wall, the wreckage of some kind of village shop long ago demolished by the endless battles through northern France.

“I've gotta say, Cap, you take me to the nicest places.” He squinted through the smoke of a spent grenade pounding an entrenched German gunner somewhere deeper in the forgettable spot.

“I bet it's swell in the summertime.”

Steve adjusted his grip on his shield and measured their surroundings. A nearby stone tower erupted from a collapsed church, and he spared a thought for the parishioners over the last two or three centuries who worshipped there.  _ I hope their faith holds through this. Their hope can rebuild destroyed structures. _

With a glance back, Bucky paused. He knew that faraway look behind the blue helmet better than just about anyone else.

“Probably. Maybe we can swing back through here after the fighting is over, really see France the way it was intended.”

“I'd like that.” Steve smiled, and the brief show of support died abruptly when chips of stone rained down on him.

Under the volley of small arms fire, they both ducked under the blasted wall.

“Two of them. I've got the one on the left,” Bucky said.

“Right. Go!”

Steve swung his arm back and hurled his shield to ricochet off the nearest support pillar. What scanty cover the wall provided, he leapt over and charged for a covered entry opposite the German's den.

Muzzle fire burst in golden sparks. With Cap pulling the German's attention, Bucky scoured the low rooftops for the second shooter. Someone low, hunched in a garret or fleeing behind the collapsed fences and cellar doors. He found a shadow of motion along a row of barn-like cottages and advanced, holding the machine gun firmly. He rushed through the debris littered through the street, rolling back. He knew better than to look back at Steve.  _ Steve would make it through, he always did. _

The disk rebounded off the church tower and Cap jumped to catch it and hurl it straight into the black maw of a shot-out window.

Another crack issued from around a corner, going wide. The second shot winged the navy and white uniform, slicing a clean line along Steve's bicep right as he flinched back.

“Now or never, Buck,” he said.

Not that anyone in the besieged outpost of no real consequence would ever hear.

Seeing a German in a dull khaki coat firing on the turned back of his best friend, Bucky tore into a run. Adrenaline surged through his veins. To hell with stealth. His combat boots ground into the soft muddy track and kicked up grit. His German opponent turned, gun trained at his chest.

The weapon kicked like an old familiar friend in Bucky's gloved hands. Squeeze of the trigger and he dropped right into the zone, washed away into an icy clarity holding the fear and anxiety at bay.

Bullets flew. The German dropped.

Across the village square, a half-hearted defense ended abruptly with a double kick and the vibranium shield colliding with a mounted machine gun buried in a thick, old oak table. The German soldier lay pinned to the wall as he writhed to get away. Captain America hauled his shield out of the wall and blocked a blow, his arm ringing with the force of a pistol butt smashing into the vibranium.

“Stop!”

Shouting in German was plenty effective as English. The soldier couldn't be more than twenty, his bloodshot eyes and patchy beard better suited for someone spending too long on a polar expedition. His clothes were rather better than the typical grunt sent to Northern France.

Steve cuffed him across the shoulder to slow him, knocking the gun away with a sweep of the shield.

“I said stop. Surrender now, you won't get hurt.”

“You're too late,” the soldier said.

“Too late for what?”

Steve swiveled, still pinning the soldier down with his shield. A chill ran down his spine. Outside the gloom of the wet spring afternoon evinced typical grim April weather for that part of the world, the smoky haze carried along by a damp breeze.

The German chuckled. He resisted an urge to clamp his glove over the young man's mouth to keep him from giving their position away.

An acric tone chased under the dust and torn earth smells common to all battlefields, big or small. Bucky was nowhere to be seen. The stillness seeped in through the settling dust.

Steve grabbed the German and hauled him to the inner wall, ignoring the spewed protests hot in his ear. His line of sight was little better, revealing not much more than the collapsed buildings and pocked walls where he and Bucky took shelter minutes earlier.

Charges blew. The shockwave of sound popped in the air and the fire erupted from the church. Masonry groaned. Something hit the ground in a soft cascade, more like a torrent of sand than pebbles dumped from a bucket. The metallic click rang once, and the soldier squirmed to cover himself. With instinct born from the battlefield, Steve dropped, the shield lifted over both of them.

The roof and walls of the shop shuddered in a mute pang. Seconds later another shockwave barreled through the structure, throwing the disorderly contents into disarray. Louder groans and pops accompanied the awful sight he caught beneath the rim of the shield as the church tower finally gave way. Sloughed clear off its aged foundation, cemented stones toppled over and smashed through the humble wooden walls and brick facades.

“Steve!”

Bucky cried out from far away. A muffled noise, calling, full of fear.

Steve could barely hear it through the ringing in his ears. He shouted in response, but it was like calling from the bottom of a well.

“Take cover!” 

It was too late for a warning, too late for everything as Steve watched Bucky tear out into the square, gun slapping his side, into the path of too many of those old blocks.

_ God have mercy. Protect him! _ The horrified thoughts rang out in a prayer. Steve wasn't much sure if there was a personal god; those days spent trudging through the Ardennes and besieging HYDRA posts scattered along the western frontiers left him wondering what kind of deity allowed men of such darkness to exist in the world.

Some heavy thud overhead sent timbers groaning. Skewed lines of the ceiling sloped down hard. The blond soldier shrank back under the shield, trying to cover his head while Steve gave what cover he could from the shield and his own larger body. When the roof finally collapsed, a year's worth of debris poured down on them.

From within their temporary sarcophagus, Steve barely heard the thudding of toppled blocks hitting the earth. He waited for another shout, another cry. The volley of gunfire. Hands scratching, boots on the ground.

Nothing.

Nothing but his own ragged breathing and the shallow gasps of the soldier. Even those he could barely hear. Steve spoke in a shout to be heard, and his new companion was no better.

“What happened?”

“Won't let the Americans win. Nor take our work. Orders.”

The German trembled, shoulders sharp under his coat. Steve dared not shake him. Priorities cascaded. Dig himself out, find Bucky, and get any civilians pinned down out of the surrounding area. He could worry about the explosive-lined church later. His thoughts swirled into oblivion for a moment while he hauled the German closer.

“Come on, then.”

Thrusting stone and splinters out of their way, he began the arduous process of trying to dig himself free. Timbers shifted and more debris flowed through, causing the German to cry out in fear. A glimpse of daylight became darkness again when tiles slid over the small hole. Redoubling his efforts, Steve tossed away the chunks of wood as he waded waist-deep in plaster, stone, and splinters. The shield acted as a scoop, throwing bits free.

“Don't leave me,” the German said.

“Keep digging. Stay away from that.”

Steve nodded at a heavy boulder lying precariously on the collapsed second floor. Bits of smashed pine dammed under the remnant of the church tower kept the stone from sliding any closer, but the least disruption would bring it toppling down on them.

The soldier nodded and tried to push away the lighter pieces, his hands and arms completely coated in grey dust. A trickle of blood ran down his brow, a cut extending into his ashen blonde hairline.

Clearing a path for them took long, too long. The dust in the air choked every breath. His left foot was numb, and a dull throbbing pain in his hip lingered whenever he tried to shift too much. Steve never slowed. Somewhere out there, Bucky waited.

Could be hurt.

Needed him.

The push and pull was too slow. Progress trickled through his fingers, slid off his shield. He dug, and dug, while smoke and grit floated through the air. As soon as he could pull himself out, Steve hauled himself up and ran for the square. He crawled over the rough stones thrown down by explosives.

The soldier cried out again. “Don't leave me!”

German faded into the gloom. He launched himself into a run for the row of crushed buildings where he last spotted the brunet in his blue coat. He threw open doors and ripped stones out of the way, peering inside for any signs of the one thing he dreaded.

No body lay in the gloomy foyer of a house.

His muscles ached, but he built up a rhythm, clearing a path around the side. Every stone he tossed aside that showed bare earth meant Bucky didn't lie beneath. Small blessings. Steve focused on that.

The stock of a familiar gun came to light in his digging. Immediately he fell to his knees and worked it free, careful not to dislodge the shorn timbers smashed by the tower's fall. Underneath could be anything, but he reached in to feel for a clutching hand, lifeless fingers.

“Bucky?” he whispered. “Don't go. Don't go. If you're there, I'm coming.”

Steve didn't notice the tracks of tears running down his dust-grimed face, pausing only to tear at the rocks. He tossed aside what he could and found nothing to greet him but a smear of dark dust on broken pavement and dirt. A shred of blue cloth lay discarded against the undulating mound.

Trembling fingers traced the powder, disturbing the flakes. His throat went dry, cracked lips gummy. No words encompassed the thickening dread crawling over his throat. Anguish choked a shallow breath. Again and again, Steve scooped up the dark dust and the cloth.

_ This couldn't be Bucky. This couldn't. _

He was clawing in the dirt when a warm hand landed on his shoulder. He swiveled and met that concerned, beloved face. Blue eyes scoured every detail down to the firm chin, the worried brows stained by blood. Bucky's face was grey, a pallor caused by the plaster and cement clinging to him.

Bucky spoke but the words were garbled at best. He swept the shield over his back and pulled him into an embrace, crushing the shorter man to his chest. The pain in his heart nearly cleaved his ribs apart, and Steve gasped for breath.

“It's gonna be okay, Steve. I promise. I'm always at your side.”

Words felt more than they could be heard were stitched into his uniform.

A promise kept.

 

* * *

 

Bruce grimaces as he stepped outside into the spotless hallway. The lack of sleep bruises the bags under his eyes to an unhealthy shade of violet. It matches the other injuries barely concealed by a button-down shirt salvaged from the laundry.

“He's stable,” he says.

“Conscious?”

Natasha scrapes her hands through her bleached blonde hair.  

“You ever try giving a supersoldier valium? It's not going to do much before it burns off.”

“Easy. I'm not your enemy.”

She raises her hands in surrender or defense, though with her, Bruce can never be absolutely certain. A nasty gouge runs down her wrist and sinks at an angle across her wrist.

Bruce's shoulders droop. “I know. Sorry, it's just…”

“You don't have to say it.” Her hoarse voice gives out at the end.

It. Then, before now, a time cleaved in two in twinkling golden digits.

Patting his pant pocket, he fishes out a lumpy roll of gauze. “I've taken to carrying this everywhere with me. Just in case, you know? Spring a leak or something.” His worried eyes move to her wrist. “You want me to patch you up?”   
  
“No.”   
  
The certainty halts Bruce, and he looks down at the misshapen white lump in his hands. “Right. You know infection out here…”

Natasha smirks, no light reaching her eyes. “They took care of that in the Red Room. If it hasn't killed me yet, it won't.”

Immense gravity crushes all the air out of the corridor, bending them both under the unnameable horror. Bruce squeezes the gauze in his fist, and she brushes past him into Steve's room.

“Nat. Nat, wait, please.”

The door whispers shut behind him, locking him out. Bruce slumps against the wall, sinking down several inches. His tailbone bumps the wall, his knees pressed to his chest.

Not for the first time in the last twelve hours, he succumbs to the hollow tears.

 

* * *

 

“Rogers.” Natasha squeezes around the rolling table littered by empty bottles and plastic cases. Bandages and salves raided from the infirmary go unused, but she sees the wreckage of the man for herself.

He sits in an uncomfortable folding chair facing the wall, something scrounged up from the abyss. The well-made bed is untouched, sheets folded and pillows left in the centre. All the pretty artwork lies in a heap on the floor, hangings torn down from hooks and masks fallen from their pegs.

Steve clenches his fist around a wadded up bundle of cloth. Closer, the bleached fingers squeeze a heap of black.

“Hey.” Natasha gives him a wide enough berth not to pin him in. She could pull up a chair but it's easier to stand still outside arm's reach.

Another pulse and the cloth compresses into a ragged ball. His shoulders slope down as he leans over his thighs, gaze fixed ahead.

A full ten minutes slip away forever before he speaks.

“You should go, Nat.”

“You ever leave anyone in their hour of need?”

His head jerks up. Stinging eyes gone pink around the crystal-clear blue irises narrow and he glares at her in a way no one would ever associate with clean-cut Captain America. Then again, he lost the right to that mantle a long time ago.

“Screw you.”

“Stop being a pussy.” She gives good as she gets, breaking him out of the cold shell of despair. Anger is good. Russia teaches hard lessons of its children, and anger cleanses where grief drowns. 

He half rises from his seat before he catches himself. “Sorry.”

“Don't be. I deliberately got a rise out of you.” She shrugs her shoulder, her black vest squeezing and rippling in all the right places. Every day she dons it and given she never ages, Steve completely loses sense of time around her.

“You do not deserve harsh language. It's unbecoming of me,” he says.

“No one's judging you.”

“I am.”

“Then stop judging yourself. You may have noticed, but you're a bit harsh.”

“Maybe I have a right to be. I failed. I failed everyone.” 

His voice cracks and he clenches his fist again. Broad, strong hands already absent of bruises cover his face. When he breathes in, the cloth lends a familiar, fading fragrance.

“Stop talking like that. That's an order.” Natasha's lips compress into a white line.

He shakes his head, a hoarse sound halfway between despair and submission escaping his lips.

“I mean it.” She steps in and dares to put her hand on the back of the flimsy seat. A miracle the chair holds up under a man of Steve's size, she worries the addition could collapse it and spill him to the floor. Then again, he deserves it. “You don't get to berate my friend's choices. Not from the perch of hindsight, like you are the all-seeing, all-knowing king of the world.”

“We'd call that God back in my day,” he says.

“And are  _ you _ God?”

“Hardly.”

Natasha cuffs his shoulder with her clenched fist. Enough to bruise, though not for a little yet. “Then maybe stop holding yourself to some impossible standard. It won't change anything and besides.” The knife is in. All it needs is a twist. “He wouldn't want you to do it.”

Stiffening body upright, Steve drops his hands into his lap and gives her a long, hard stare. Behind the admixture of a frown and dented brows, his roiling eyes shine with unspeakable pain.

“That's low, Nat.”

“Low is sitting here killing yourself by inches for grief.” Her hands reach for his, barely covering his fists. Long fingers articulate the kind of support she has never excelled at vocalizing. They are both souls driven by action. “That's what you are doing. Diminishing day by day. Bruce keeps your body alive but your soul?”

“I don't have much of that left, Nat. You ever think maybe you can make a life for yourself with him?”

“Disregarding my personal life, we're talking about you.” She hisses through her teeth.

He looks away.

“Earth to Steve Rogers, if you don't talk about him or do something about him, the festering misery is going to kill you. You get that, right?” She squeezes his hands, pulling his clenched fists to her. “This is suicide by degrees. Pretending any other way works for them, but not me. I know you, and I know how you felt about  _ him _ .”

“I don't want to talk about it.”

“Then shut up and listen. I'll let you have that much,” she fumbles for his touch, still speaking, “ _ if _ you say his name.”

Steve goes very still and she requires no psychology degree to know he wants to push her away and succumb to anything that takes him millions of miles away.

Theirs is a standoff without a winner or any happy outcome. Before the silence grows too heavy, he whispers, “I can't do that.”

“You didn't fail Bucky. Wanda. Sam.”

His bowed head says otherwise, and Natasha squares her shoulders.

“This talk has been a time coming. You had your privacy, and we all mourn. Shuri had to take on an entire kingdom with a world in crisis and refugees flooding over the borders for sanctuary she is neither equipped to offer or cope with.” Her eyes thin. “It's been two weeks, Steve, and we have a long time and way to go before we can ever heal. But healing means  _ living _ . I have to know you can make those steps.”

“I don't know I can. Not anymore.”

“So you'll be conquered by the fear of forgetting him.”

Steve's inarticulate sob wrenches from his throat. He pulls her down and clings to her, the way a drowning man holds onto a crate or any piece of wooden flotsam in a storm.

“Nat. I can't.” His voice cracks. A gulp is no consolation. “I can't do it. Not without him. He looked…”

She says nothing for that would avert the maelstrom. Neither of them hold the power to ease the agony of the impossible, or shoulder the unbearable. Except they must. It's the only way.

“He looked at me. For an answer. A fix. I got nothing.” 

The dam springs, and when they do, the slow, imperfect words fall out in ponderous cascades. Each jagged edge cuts his tongue. He never wants to hear the sound of his voice again. “Nothing as he unwound. Fell apart.”

The vibration rattles her abdomen. Heat pours into the vibranium Kevlar. Tears roll down her face, her skin prickling and body leaden. Some things not even serums can ease.

“I saw his eyes. At the end, he knew it was over and I … I was just there. Useless. Like a kid from Brooklyn on a battlefield. Would've been better if we were both shot, or gored by the outriders.” Again he squeezes the scrap of cloth and her with it, two things tangible in a world turned upside down. “I can't remember what I used to. The way we used to do things together, how he walked. Did he lumber or was he more purposeful and fast?”

The twinned tracks running over her cheeks are the only cool part of her reddened face. But still she stays quiet, her hand on his neck. The only movement she allows herself, touching his nape by the collar.

“I hear him in my dreams. But his face is smeared. I oughta know. I had a photograph once. But after everything, it's gone. I looked everywhere, checked the mattress and my locker, the bird. Nothing.” 

Steve slants his gaze at the ground, then shuts his eyes. “I don't want to be in a world without him.”

“We are.”

“I don't want this world. I don't want this future!”   

His anger erupts in a bellowing cry, a denial, as if that would have changed anything from the doomed succession. As soon as it rose, the gale passes and he slumps, half-leaning into her. His arm drops and with it, a scrap of black cloth big enough to wrap around a limb or cover a pillow.

Natasha stoops to collect it, holding it. Feeling the soft weaving through her fingers.

“I know. None of us wanted this. We gave it all we had, and it wasn't enough. But it's what we've got.”

“Stop.”

“That's just it. We cannot. Don't we owe it to him to live? And fix it?”  

She knows the purpose to cover a maimed shoulder, a simple act of dignity by a kind people. Quietly she lays the cloth over his knee, tucking the ends under.

The quiet sobs become louder as they both stare at the remnant of a life. Her tears mingle with his as seas meet on foreign shores, scouring away the familiar landmarks over time. Darkness hides the briny stains dropping down. 

Long after his body hurts and his eyes burn, he still shakes with the trampled misery of life. Energy spent on pain leaves him a dark, gutted candle. Steve can barely sit upright. Only Nat much keeps him from toppling over in a stupor.

He has no words to say. The attempt wipes him clean of what little effort he can muster, and she watches his haggard, unshaven face with infinite tenderness and sadness together. For her, he should try. He would.

“I need you to see something before you decide,” she says.

A blank stretch of time and utter lack of curiosity fill in the uncomfortable gap. She steps back, taking his hand. His slide out of the chair signifies acquiescence, for all that he stumbles in the effort. Wrapping her arm around him offers support without judgment, and they shuffle out into the empty hall together.

* * *

 

The scale and scope of the room is hard to understand. For all the world, he feels like he stands in a glass fishing buoy, the old fashioned kind used in the Pacific. Some kind of aquarium. Perfectly round walls converge at the top in a flat plane, the floor under his shabby boots slippery as oil. The scale would have impressed him, once upon a time, before he watched q-ships burn in the atmosphere and witnessed huge cones smash into the earth to disgorge monsters on a holy land.

Natasha fiddles with her belt, trying to remove something from a jammed pocket.

Not even a chair in sight. The best Steve finds is a makeshift table about chest height, supported by three odd prongs reminding him of a gem setting.

And his stomach flips at the mere thought of that. He covers his mouth with his hand and practices breathing, the only way he much knows how to deal with the river of memories overcoming him.

 

* * *

 

_ “Steve?” _

_ “Bucky…” _

_ “Something's wrong.” _

_ A faint grey miasma rises off the navy jacket, and for a moment, he wonders if the new vibranium arm worn by his best friend is somehow smoking. Too much energy through the gyros and wires, perhaps? How little he really knows about Wakandan technology. _

_ But the ghostly ripples spinning in the soft breeze run counter to the air circulating in the decimated grove. The strap of the machine gun starts to fall, no longer supported by the body that should hold it.  _

_ Steve's gorge rises. He opens his mouth to scream, launching into a hopeless dash. _

_ Fear in those blue eyes, fear that will arrest him for a lifetime. _

_ Bucky's body is coming apart at the seams, like a heat shimmer bending and contortions the perfect lines and contours. He collapses inwards and blows apart, every hateful wisp of air carrying him away. _

_ Too late, they will be too late. By the time Steve reaches him, hitting the soft red soil, his hands pass through ashes and dust. All that remains is the machine gun, disposed on the ground, a toy against a madman. _

_ Best shoot the sea and think it will have any effect. _

* * *

 

Natasha slaps him across the face. He holds her pinned to the glass wall, and her kicking fails to break through the guard of his knees.

“Put me down,” she hoarsely chokes.

He drops her, moving back and falling to his knees. The only choice is running for the door, a door sealed into this circular chamber where he cannot distinguish one wall from another. The seamless planes meet together.

“Let me out. I can't stay here. I…”

A messy flex of her fingers sends out a wild fragmentary projection of blue lines. The kimoyo beads, fat and black bracelet connected around her wrist, funnel the energy into a projection painted on every surface.

Blurry images sharpen into focus as the built-in technology takes over from her haphazard gestures. He scarcely cares. The grief is too consuming, swallowing every spare thought.

_ “Something's wrong…” _

None of the murals come to life much matter, like a home movie for another family he never met.

“Start with something happy.” A young woman's voice. It takes him a moment to place Shuri. Younger. Brighter. Not saddled by the cares of ruling in a fractured nation, identity splintered by an awful future.

“I dunno. Playing ball with the kids is pretty happy.” He'd know the voice anywhere?

“Bucky?” His head lifts. And there in live detail is his best friend, breathing and bright and whole, grinning. At him, projected off the walls, in detail so rich he might as well have flesh.

“Something a bit more meaningful than that, white boy!” She laughs. Affection pours over the room, which resolves into a garden of some kind filled with plants so diverse and foreign Steve might name one with difficulty.

“We're headed into a brave new world, Princess. I don't know if I can meet your criteria so easily,” Bucky says.

“I'm sure you can.” Shuri pauses. “Start with Steve Rogers.”

Is that Bucky damn well blushing? A little under his beard, but enough. The grin is genuine, even if he lowers his eyes in a momentary bout of bashfulness. Rare, given he was always the confident one.

Steve gapes. How else can he not? “Nat… What…”

“Shuri recorded the sessions for his healing process. They did more than just take a film.”

He reaches out, almost terrified. His fingers slide through the long tied blue robe worn over tribal clothes. Bucky is real in sound and sight, but not touch. His heart shatters into smaller fragments. For a moment it might have worked.  _ Maybe, if... _

Nat grabs his wrist, gentle about the situation as she extracts his hand from the projection. “More importantly, she recorded his thoughts with his consent. Took readings of his mental patterns, kind of like she scanned Viz. Except as a human. So she picked up his thoughts and feelings.” 

Steve stares in horrified fascination at Bucky as he answers the questions from the young princess.

“Steve. You know he's my best friend, the one person I can always count on,” Bucky says.

Another of those fairy-bell laughs. “I think he is a bit more than that for you.”

“Yeah. I guess he is. Beyond saving my life, he's been the touchstone for me for a long time. You don't find people that good, that honourable, anymore. Least not that I ever hear about.” Bucky grins, though he looks away. “I love him.”

Slowly, so slowly, Steve turns to meet Natasha's waiting gaze. He shakes his head. “I don't know this is right.”

“You were afraid of losing him. This gives you a means not to until we can get him back.”

“But he's gone. After Th--”

“Don't say that bastard’s name.” Contempt and loathing writhe around every sound. Putting her hands on his shoulders, Nat pushes him back down to the floor. “I want you to stay and watch. I'll get you a pillow if you need.”

“Why are you showing me this?”

“I'm giving you a reason to fight. To live.”

“And it's not worth staying?’   
  
“This is his life with  _ you _ , not me. He shares his hopes and memories about you, Rogers, and this faithfully recounts all of it. Even his dreams, from the first month we brought him here,” she says.

“His dreams.”

“Shuri says it's all yours. Tell her to delete it, she will. Play it every place with a functional internet connection, we will.” Natasha strips off the kimoyo bead bracelet and Bucky freezes, the frames on the walls alive with the lush greenery of a field.

She hands him the bracelet. “You have control.”

Steve takes the strand of beads and manages to fit it over his wrist with difficulty. “How do I do it?”

Natasha demonstrates shaping his fingers and rolling his palm. They practice several times before he can bring Bucky into focus, moving again. 

“That turns it on. The rest is voice activated, or you can sweep your hand like this to speed up, reverse to rewind.” She shows him each move.

A sense of longing and horror vaguely lap at his mind. Just seeing the memory-softened features of his best friend in razor sharp definition fill in the holes that time brought down. Maybe a divine curse can be abated.

“This should help me remember him, yeah?”    
  
“I hope so.” Natasha leans over to kiss him on the brow. Steve dares not to clutch onto her, though the urge is there. “I'm going to go be of use to our kind patrons. Send for me if you need.”

“Right now?”   
  
“Steve, there is nothing I can give you that would be any more use than this. Watch the movies. Feel a little. Remember what we have to do.”   
  
Fingers flicked, he watches as Bucky animates, stride wide along the rolling hill.

The brown-haired soldier rolls his shoulder, unself-conscious about the black cloth tied off, in lieu of a sleeve. “Lucky for me, he's an easy man to love. Someone that selfless is hard to imagine. This one time, we ended up in the middle of nowhere in southern Italy and he somehow finds this chocolate bar in his pack. Probably packed there by Peggy, she always thought about stuff like that. Now chocolate was scarce, and here he is, giving chocolate to the grimiest urchin I've ever seen in my life…”

Natasha slips out through the glassy doorway, leaving Steve to watch his beloved come to life.

Just maybe he can breathe.

And maybe he will find a way to fulfill his promise after all.

**Author's Note:**

> The next work delves into the private dream diaries and thoughts shared during the long healing process that led Bucky back to "a semi-stable hundred year old man."
> 
> You want more, tell me what in the comments!


End file.
